Omake 9: Maria the Ripper (3)

Original Idea from: KingAllen (FFN)

A week passed since Maria Jacqueline Brando entered my large scheme of things and… my life.

Things hadn’t been as smooth I planned those to be… especially when Muddiburi decided to tutor me at the simple condition of not seeing ‘the foul creature’ hanging around me.

Which was kind of sad since I had plans to help Jackie learn how to swim, and to help her face the slight fear she had over water bodies.

It was a legitimate concern of hers that stemmed from the fact that the souls that made her essence were all killed by drowning. All those unwanted children… thrown into the darkness of the Thames.

I was careful to not sound too pushy over this matter. I could see that she was having already some issues in merely thinking about that topic and I didn’t want to shove her too hard against her Aquaphobia.

Still, with Muddiburi visiting on a regular basis for my training sessions, I managed to finally get some insight over what Jack truly was.

My first idea that she was a mere Wraith proved to be correct… but the idea itself about what Wraiths were from what was known in the Nasuverse’s lore ended up falling down as a false assumption on my part.

Jack wasn’t the Jack I had thought her being. Or rather, this Jack wasn’t attached to the madness that was the Nasuverse.

No Magecraft, no Alaya, no Gaia, and, most of all, no need to worry about a certain white-haired tanned Archer passing by to kill me for manipulating the current state of things.

Clocktower didn’t exist. I had to check thoroughly and make a stupid rush to check onto where the entrance to the association was. That very part didn’t exist in the British Museum and I even looked around the basement within the building, where the entrance was meant to be, to confirm this.

The Magus Association wasn’t there, and I could already breathe a relieved sigh at the lack of possible new enemies so early on.

I couldn’t find any other elements from the Fateverse existing within this world much to my growing ease. I tried by checking for any correlation to the Einzbern Family, or even about the Tohsaka clan from the various books about Japan that were available in the Joestar’s library.

I even thought that this was more of a Tsukihimeverse and went around to see if I could find anything about Zelretch.

Zelretch was the main element that truly would confirm or not if this was a full-fledged mix with an alternate Nasuverse.

...But I couldn’t find anything about him, nor I knew how to catch his attention.

I was stuck in that doubt that maybe things were just terribly different from what I had thought those being… but then again, Muddiburi would’ve mentioned about ‘strange blue lines’ in everyone’s body if there was such a thing like Magic Circuits.

With that theory debunked on a large scale, my worry shifted back to Jack.

A coincidence, that’s how I had worded out that curious ‘cameo’ from such a recently renowned individual.

Jackie was an anomaly. A cute one, but still an unexpected element within this world.

More words from Muddiburi highlighted the unexpected element that was Jack’s existence. Wraiths were meant to be monstrous, as those generally formed by mixing the various aspects of war victims’ appearances. Skeletal, deformed, hooded, mindless, and horrible.

But Jack was none of that, and I quickly realized that the reason why she looked as such was the souls that made her… her.

Drowned children, with a striking majority of girls, that had all a youthful and childish appearance.

Prostitutes were already horrified by the nature of their jobs, but it was the fact that they were conceiving bastard children to their clients that truly made them shiver in self-hatred.

The girls were the one that hit them the worst because they surely could see another batch of sex workers that wouldn’t have any choice on the future choices about any possible jobs.

It was unpleasant to think about this, but the more I looked at Jack and… how much earnest she was in her embraces, the more I was being reminded of the starvation of affection that the children had to endure.

Jack represented the main entity, but the desire was intense because of how connecting it was to all those souls part of that conglomerate.

Another thing that truly left me perplexed was a warning that my Hamon teacher decided to level on me.

Jack was still a Wraith. While many would easily call those creatures akin to zombies, there were major differences between a monster and another.

Zombies and Vampires were by nature weak to Sunlight/Ripple. The mystical ability worked as a mean to ‘reanimate’ the undead element and… force those to die right as the monstrous nature clashed against the past humane one.

But Wraiths? They were completely the opposite. Lifeforce was something they needed to consume on a constant basis to survive, and Jack wasn’t an exception to that rule.

Being around other human beings, the girl was always before an abundant presence of life energy that not only sustained her… but also helped her ‘stabilize’.

Wraiths were anomalies within the scale of existence. Their presence was similar to Ghost in the plane of existence, but their conditions those to turn into something a little more material.

More energy equaled to a stabler body. A stabler body meant that the wraith would eventually be able to produce life energy on its own.

Which meant that eventually Jackie was going to turn in a human with a single soul… or that’s how things seemed to allude to.

It was still difficult to assess from an early look if her body was going to keep the unnatural magical power within her core, or if her soul was going to become a single thing or still a collective of multiple ‘hiveminded’ souls.

But… I was sure of one thing in particular over the matter.

Jack was loyal to me, and only me.

Sure, she had been quite affectionate towards me and… she had kept a good attitude towards Jojo and Jonathan. Heck, she even started to play around with Danny after the dog had decided to finally approach her and see if she was nice or not despite her inhuman nature.

But the final testament of her familial love manifested when she acted when Wang Chan struck for a second time.

There had been so much happening in that day. From finding out that Hannah, the young woman I had ‘saved’ from Jack, was now leading a gang and happily relinquishing it to my command, to the large warehouse filled with various goods that was now mine to organize and use.

The young woman was, of course, unnerved by the fact that Jackie was now a ‘friend’, but she seemed to melt away in a cute spree when the white-haired child apologized with a genuine tone for what had happened and accepted some heavy petting from the former courtesan.

Then the mad Chinese man attacked, getting a surprise attack on me and tying my hands through some magical chains. It was just as I started to feel a concussion at being slammed on the nearby wall that I saw a white and black blur move towards the dark magician.

He survived the single rush, but the same couldn’t be said about his now missing left hand. That precise strike was meant to free me from the shackles, but it also forced the crazy bastard in a swift retreat before I had the chance to coordinate a response.

Jackie was… inconsolable when she first took notice of my injuries. I hadn’t seen her this much… shaken. It was kind of saddening, but also the ultimate proof of her devotion.

My ease in offering hugs and headpats was increased to a normal stance as I was now aware of her genuine commitment in my cause, and I kept her in an embrace until we were back… home.

It was odd to think that the murderous thing that was Fate’s Jack the Killer was happily nestling her head on my shoulder, her semi-limp arms wrapped around my waist and… snoring softly by my hear.

With that responsibility now confirmed as a must to protect, my ambitions were unchanged… if not improved by Jack’s presence in the big picture.

The world needed a childish perspective once in a while. So why don’t give an understanding child a job in the new order around the corner?